The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) today accused controversial Catholic priest Ejike Mbaka of mixing sorcery and Catholicism. The allegation was contained in a statement in which the Abuja-based rights group lambasted Rev. Fr. Mbaka for taking its criticism of his “prophecy” on possible attempts to kill President Muhammadu Buhari and trying to link the group with the purported plot. Below is the text of HURIWA’s statement signed by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko:
“Our attention in the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has been called to an alleged inciteful reaction to our criticism of Ejike Mbaka’s prophecy concerning the life of Mr President and all we can say is that we are convinced that Fr Mbaka has become a confused sorcerer who should be prayed for to rediscover his priestly calling.
“Our reaction to his so called prophesy was done in exercise of our FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION and we are not afraid of his so called reaction advising the security officials to seek our view because our view has been clearly expressed and we are indeed ready to send our letter to the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria to demand that Mbaka be called to order but based on emerging reality we have decided to stay action and to leave Fr Mbaka with his conscience. We will not proceed to the Vatican with our petition even if the Bishops are too afraid to advise Fr Mbaka to abide by his priestly vocation and leave politics for politicians. We have never made any threat to drag him to court but to his bishops who are his bosses and to the Roman Curia in the Vatican. We wonder why Mbaka is so much afraid of responding to the Bishops if our letter gets to them. Fr Mbaka indeed should be prayed for. Mbaka does not love Mr President more than us. We love our President.
“We recently reacted to a so called prophesy concerning threats on the life of Mr President which was made by a Catholic Clergy in Enugu Ejike Mbaka and we dismissed the prophecy as rumour mongering even as we stated our resolve to send petitions to the Nigerian Catholic Bishops Conference to call this Enugu based priest to order to stop him from mixing up religion with politics. We make bold to state that we believe that religion and politics mustn’t be mixed up because section 10 of the constitution states clearly that Nigeria is a secular state and the Constitution says Democracy is the only form of government and that the people are the owners of the Sovereignty of Nigeria. Chapter four is replete with human rights provisions including the freedom of speech which we exercised in our criticism of Fr Mbaka unscientific and unverifiable and indeed verbose claims which at best amounts to sorcery. It appears Fr Mbaka is worried that we raised our voice to advise him to adhere to his priestly vocation and leave politics for career politicians.
“Fr Mbaka has reacted angrily and called us unprintable names including making another imaginary allegation that those who criticise his prophesy should be on security watch list as prime suspects in the assassination plot he predicted against President Muhammadu Buhari. We found Fr Mbaka’s angry reaction to our opinion as uncalled for and undemocratic and our decision is to state emphatically that we don’t believe in sorcery and therefore will have nothing to do with his conclusions. We hereby state as follows: Fr Mbaka is hereby left to his conscience to judge him. We will not waste our precious time dragging him to his Bishop or to the Roman Curia since we have since distanced ourselves from his activities. He is free to spread his messages to his audience but we repeat that we don’t believe in sorcery or magic but we believe only in God because the just shall live by faith only. Nobody or authority has the power to restrain us from exercising our fundamental freedoms.
“Finally, we wish to state that we love our President and pray for his success in office because his success is the success of all Nigerians irrespective of party affiliations. We always pray for both the Nigerian Government and the country in general. We deny in its entirety the infantile and unsubstantiated allegation made by Fr Mbaka against us and restates our loyalty and support to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari GCFR. Once more we repeat our observation that Nigeria must divorce religion from politics. Fr Mbaka is dead wrong to see critics as enemies. We are praying for him.”